A Guide to User Experience Design

User Experience Matters. As agencies set up or modernize online eligibility and enrollment systems, the user experience is a key feature that requires thoughtful and scientific attention. The commercial sector spends significant resources making sure the user experience of their websites, tools, and platforms is useful, usable, and desirable. If they fail to hit the mark, they know, as consumers, we will walk away. Many state and local agencies are far behind in taking advantage of user engagement practices to ensure their eligibility and enrollment systems provide a user experience that is inviting, understandable, and effective… (Read more)

What Makes a Good User Experience Design? Good user experience design helps people accomplish tasks with minimal time, effort, and frustration. When evaluating a solution built for individuals and families, use these guidelines as a start to ensure a good user experience… (Read more)

User Engagement Best Practices. To create solutions that are useful, usable, desirable, and help people get “jobs” done, it is imperative to engage users and stakeholders at multiple phases of the design process. User engagement can sound daunting, but there are effective methods for engaging users at key steps. The expenditure of time and resources for user engagement is more than offset by the savings from avoiding mistakes discovered after the system is live, when it is hard and costly to fix… (Read more)

Use Data to Inform and Reflect. Better use of data can help agencies, advocates, and others gain valuable insights about users. Without requiring significant investment in additional resources, collected data can help discern patterns and increase understanding about how users actually experience programs. Analyzing data can help to identify gaps, patterns, and inconsistencies with user experience. Data analysis can inform approaches to address problems, measure success, and establish metrics for continuous improvement… (Read more)